1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus, a method of controlling the image forming apparatus, and an image processing apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, there is a known printing system, in which a higher-level device provided separately from a printing device receives a print request from a host device, generates print image data in accordance with the received print request, and sends the print image data to the printing device via a data transfer path to cause the printing device to print the print image data.
Furthermore, there is a known technology relating to the above printing system, in which the data transfer path for connecting the higher-level device and the printing device is separated into a first data transfer path for use to transfer the print image data and a second data transfer path for use to transfer control information on control of printing of the print image data, in order to increase speed of transfer of data from the higher-level device to the printing device.
Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2006-279582 discloses an image processing apparatus that includes separated transfer paths, one of which is used for transferring image data transferred from the higher-level device and the other of which is used for transferring control information for controlling printing, for increasing data transfer speed; an image-data managing unit that manages reception of pieces of image data for respective colors, which are transferred from the higher-level device via transfer paths corresponding to the respective colors, and that transfers the pieces of the image data to a lower-level print output unit; and a print control unit that controls transfer of the pieces of the image data from the image-data managing unit on the basis of the control information.
In the conventional technology as disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2006-279582, pieces of image data for all colors are managed by one image-data managing unit. Therefore, the print control unit needs to control the image-data managing unit to transfer a plurality of pieces of image data, so that the control becomes complicated. Consequently, there is a problem in that it is difficult to increase speed of transfer of the image data from the higher-level device to the image-data managing unit and speed of transfer of the image data from an image-data transferring unit to the print output unit.